There may be troubles ahead: England selection issues.

[Dr Cricket]

statement from icc.
[quote]IICC Chief Executive David Richardson has issued the following statement after the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) announced that it will go-ahead with its scheduled tour of Bangladesh:

“It is important to the global game of cricket that it can be played safely in as many countries as possible. The world in which we live means we all face threats wherever we are in the world.

“Where those threats are considered higher, cricket, like other sports, undertakes extensive security assessments in determining whether or not matches can go ahead. Under the expert guidance of Reg Dickason, England have concluded that it is safe to tour Bangladesh. We welcome this decision understanding the extent of the intelligence behind it where the safety of players and staff is of utmost importance.

“Earlier this year, we held the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup in Bangladesh with great success. Like the ECB, we had carried out all the relevant safety assessments prior to the tournament and concluded it was safe for everyone involved to play.

“Now the ECB has given the tour the go ahead, the ICC will instigate our own security investigations to ensure we are confident of the safety of our match officials.

“We would like to place on the record our thanks to the various security and Government agencies in both the UK and Bangladesh for their commitment to cricket being played safely.” - /quote]

[Dr Cricket]

pretty good article from Vaughan.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2016 ... o-to-bang/

looks Like cook will be going to bangladesh but Morgan not made his mind up yet and at the moment Root, Stokes and Ali will be rested for the ODI but will go to the Test matches.

[hopeforthebest]

pretty good article from Vaughan.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2016 ... o-to-bang/

looks Like cook will be going to bangladesh but Morgan not made his mind up yet and at the moment Root, Stokes and Ali will be rested for the ODI but will go to the Test matches.

Vaughan should keep his big mouth shut on such sensitive and personal matters but he is one of those 'fools who rush in where angels fear to tread' journalists.

[Dr Cricket]

TBH he just giving an insight on what goes on this meetings and does make couple of good points, especially the point on the money and politics.

"What drives players mad is the thought you are only going for money. You have a suspicion the board are only sending you because they do not want to lose Television revenue or for political reasons.

That is why it is so important that those telling the players it is safe should go too. Tom Harrison, the ECB chief executive, chairman Colin Graves and Andrew Strauss should be on the plane with the players. It makes a difference. "

"If you agree to go and a team-mate pulls out there is always that little bit inside of you that wonders if they just do not fancy going to play in a country where their skill levels might be exposed. It is unfair, but natural for you to have that niggle in your mind which is why players should follow the advice and trust what they are told."

Although the 2nd point might be harsh but is still quite true considering people will think people are pulling out for playing reason.
Think Hales wrote a good article in the nottingham papers.
where he said that it is a very tough decision since if he doesn't go to bangladesh he will lose his test place.

http://www.nottinghampost.com/alex-hale ... story.html
"It's a tough call to make. It's your own decision, but you've got to speak with your friends, family and loved ones and listen to them," he said ahead of Tuesday's one day international against Pakistan at Trent Bridge.

"It's a tough one for everyone. The tour is going ahead and we're discussing what we'll do as a group of players.

"Obviously one of the risks of pulling out is that I'd sacrifice my Test place. There's so many factors to weigh into a decision.

Read more: Difficult for Notts to stay up admits Newell

"In the end I've got to back myself to make the right call for the sake of myself, friends, family and career. It's a tough choice."


Read more at http://www.nottinghampost.com/alex-hale ... KpkpsMv.99


Really is a tough choice for all parties and there really isn't a right or wrong decision.

[Dr Cricket]

They will be quite a few players that will have a nagging thought that they are only going because of money or political reason and it probably won't help when the papers or journalist closer to the time write articles on how much ECB would lose out if they didn't tour.

Although I do believe ECB Did everything to make sure the tour is safe for the players but like Vaughan said the players will feel more secure if Strauss, Graves and people making the decision actually went as well.

if you really ask most of the players they probably won't wanna tour and at the moment the only person saying he will tour is Cook all the rest are unsure still.
No surprise really since most players probably expected the tour to be called off.

[sussexpob]

Call me a cynic, but John Kerry has literally just left Bangladesh, a trip noted as particularly worthy because the US government are vocally concerned that the situation in the country is pretty dire, with the US deeming it necessary to interject due to the fragility of the countries capabilities of counter-terrorism and apparent failures in the past. I think one sticking point is that the US have evidence ISIS have entered the country and is behind some recent attacks, while Bangaldesh seem oblivious to it and claim attacks that ISIS claim they are committing are actually a different group. The FCO rank it at the highest terror alert level, as do basically every country.

This leaves a couple of questions, most notably that if the Secretary of State from the world most powerful country decides its time to turn up because he is worried about major problems that might occur at the drop of a hat and feels he needs to fly 10,000 miles for a chat about how they can try to stop it, obviously backed by an intelligence network that is the most developed and best funded in human history..... Then how does a private individual working for a cricketing board think turning up and assessing the lock on a bedroom door and how tall the perimeter fence is at the team hotel is a worthy assessment of risk?

I mean, lets take a recent example. I was in Brussels Zaventum airport in November coming back from Argentina(3 days after Paris attacks) and Dec/Jan 2016. Terror threats were at their highest level, and I believe havent dropped since. Everyone anticipated an attack imminently. The police/army/soldiers.... literally, everything was done to prevent it. There were tanks on every street corner, and inbetween disposed in short bursts were military foot soldiers armed with rifles. The airport had more armed soldiers and sniffer dogs than travellers, and I was searched at various stages to get in the airport, and out. Leave a bag for a millisecond and you had an armed soldier telling you to stand still......Not long after someone killed 30 odd people in the same place.

How anyone can turn around and say "yeah, this place is safe" is beyond me. If someone can get into a European airport with several bombs and rifles and kill 30 people when the whole of the country was on high alert and a whole battalion of armed troops were patrolling the place, then they can quite as easily bomb a bus of cricketers. This are high level targets at highly sensitve times!!

This sounds a lot like Pakistan in the 2000's and that ended really well, right? If by really well you mean it was a bloody miracle that none of the Sri Lanka team were killed, then whoopie!! No matter what Michael Vaughan or the ECB says, the players security is being assessed by a man employed by the ECB, who have a multi-million pound interest on this tour going ahead.

I dont think its right, and personally Id back anyone for not going. And to be perfectly frank, Id also find it difficult to tour somewhere with such risible opinions on LGBT and other human rights in general.

[Dr Cricket]

good post sussex, yeah doesn't really make sense considering they could call the tour off and no one would blink an eye lid considering everyone thought the tour will be called off anyway.

Do wish one of the journalist digs a bit deeper and actually finds out how much the tour would cost ECB if it was cancelled, for me the figure is around 70M but could be double that really.
just if someone ask how Australia could cancel the tour easily well the answer is that Fox Sport or Australian TV network don't actually show interest in overseas games so the tour isn't actually worth much and if anything Bangladesh makes a lost hosting the games so they in return don't really care if the games don't take place but everything changes when England or india tours.

Think Bangladesh and CA made a deal anyway since Bangladesh are scheduled to tour Australia next winter.

[Dr Cricket]

article on Kerry visit to bangladesh and india.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wir ... s-41711381

"The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for that attack, but Bangladeshi authorities maintain that IS has no presence in the country and that a banned local group, Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, or JMB, was behind it. Some have accused Bangladesh of turning a blind eye to the possibility of outsiders radicalizing elements of the Muslim-majority nation.

Kerry said he does not believe "the government of Bangladesh has its head in the sand." But he also made the point that there are links between the Islamic State and extremists around the world, including in Bangladesh.

"There is evidence that ISIL in Iraq and Syria has contacts with about eight different entities around the world, and one of them is in South Asia," Kerry told reporters in a news conference in Dhaka. "And they are connected to some degree with some of the operatives here, and we made that very clear in our conversation."

Kerry spoke pointedly of the transnational threat posed by terrorism. The July 1 attack on Dhaka's Holey Artisan Bakery "was an outrage clearly designed to divide Bangladesh, designed to try to cut off this welcoming society from the outside world," he said."

[Arthur Crabtree]

Call me a cynic, but John Kerry has literally just left Bangladesh, a trip noted as particularly worthy because the US government are vocally concerned that the situation in the country is pretty dire, with the US deeming it necessary to interject due to the fragility of the countries capabilities of counter-terrorism and apparent failures in the past. I think one sticking point is that the US have evidence ISIS have entered the country and is behind some recent attacks, while Bangaldesh seem oblivious to it and claim attacks that ISIS claim they are committing are actually a different group. The FCO rank it at the highest terror alert level, as do basically every country.

I mean, lets take a recent example. I was in Brussels Zaventum airport in November coming back from Argentina(3 days after Paris attacks) and Dec/Jan 2016. Terror threats were at their highest level, and I believe havent dropped since. Everyone anticipated an attack imminently. The police/army/soldiers.... literally, everything was done to prevent it. There were tanks on every street corner, and inbetween disposed in short bursts were military foot soldiers armed with rifles. The airport had more armed soldiers and sniffer dogs than travellers, and I was searched at various stages to get in the airport, and out. Leave a bag for a millisecond and you had an armed soldier telling you to stand still......Not long after someone killed 30 odd people in the same place.

The risk is everywhere. Why not call off the European Championships in France and events in Belgium and UK, where security keeps telling us an attack is permanently imminent. The 2005 Ashes might well have been called off. It seems like risks in western counties are tolerated. And people say the 'terrorists shouldn't be allowed to win'. But risks elsewhere are unacceptable. Surely the U19s shouldn't have been risked in BD if the England side can't be?

[Dr Cricket]

Call me a cynic, but John Kerry has literally just left Bangladesh, a trip noted as particularly worthy because the US government are vocally concerned that the situation in the country is pretty dire, with the US deeming it necessary to interject due to the fragility of the countries capabilities of counter-terrorism and apparent failures in the past. I think one sticking point is that the US have evidence ISIS have entered the country and is behind some recent attacks, while Bangaldesh seem oblivious to it and claim attacks that ISIS claim they are committing are actually a different group. The FCO rank it at the highest terror alert level, as do basically every country.

I mean, lets take a recent example. I was in Brussels Zaventum airport in November coming back from Argentina(3 days after Paris attacks) and Dec/Jan 2016. Terror threats were at their highest level, and I believe havent dropped since. Everyone anticipated an attack imminently. The police/army/soldiers.... literally, everything was done to prevent it. There were tanks on every street corner, and inbetween disposed in short bursts were military foot soldiers armed with rifles. The airport had more armed soldiers and sniffer dogs than travellers, and I was searched at various stages to get in the airport, and out. Leave a bag for a millisecond and you had an armed soldier telling you to stand still......Not long after someone killed 30 odd people in the same place.

The risk is everywhere. Why not call off the European Championships in France and events in Belgium and UK, where security keeps telling us an attack is permanently imminent. The 2005 Ashes might well have been called off. It seems like risks in western counties are tolerated. And people say the 'terrorists shouldn't be allowed to win'. But risks elsewhere are unacceptable. Surely the U19s shouldn't have been risked in BD if the England side can't be?

in general yes, but ECB are *modded* if an attack does actually take place in Bangladesh which affected the players.
No question about it if ISIS or terrorist groups are in huge numbers in Bangladesh they will be targeting the players since that will distrupt Bangladesh the most and will have the western media interest as well.
Bangladesh will provide very good security and protect the players as much as they can but can ECB actually take the risk knowing an attack could be deadly to the players and the staff.

I be honest I am very 50-50 on this would love the tour to go on and see Bangladesh play cricket at home but at the same time can actually see the risk of an attack and If I was a player I probably won't go since I don't trust ECB to make the right decision on my safety on the tour.

If anything paris, Belgium showed is that even the best security arrangements can't stop an attack if the terrorist really want to attack and cause mayhem.

Really the point is if they was no money or financial consideration the European Championship and the Bangladesh tour wouldn't take place.

Really it all depends on what type of security the team are getting and if the security is actually quite good, Ather made a good point on the imran doc where pakistan said they will provide presidential security to the players but then added 4 presidents or senior politicians have been shot so does the presidential security actually mean much.

At the moment ECB and most boards are only going to bangladesh because the board have generally handled security matters well and ran the ICC events/Big tours well with not that many problems even with protest or Election violence taking place.

ECB themselves said that ICC under 19 world cup played a part in them saying yes for the senior teams tour.

Crux of the matter is how much did the potential fall out of a cancelled tour affect ECB decision in saying yes to the tour.

[sussexpob]

The risk is everywhere. Why not call off the European Championships in France and events in Belgium and UK, where security keeps telling us an attack is permanently imminent. The 2005 Ashes might well have been called off. It seems like risks in western counties are tolerated. And people say the 'terrorists shouldn't be allowed to win'. But risks elsewhere are unacceptable. Surely the U19s shouldn't have been risked in BD if the England side can't be?

The Belgian Football team cancelled their match with Spain due to security concerns and threats after the Paris attacks. Their home game with Portugal was also cancelled and moved at the last minute to be played in Portugal. Several events like Tomorrow-world and Belgium's highest profile film festival have also been cancelled in 2016 for reasons linked to security directly, or to the cost of providing adequate security making the projects unworkable.

As for France, the list of events that have been cancelled this summer on security grounds forms an incredibly long list. They range from very small local festivals to large ones, such as those in the major cities. So to say that cancellations of this nature only occur in Asian countries is not true.

I think a clear distinction in France has been made. For events that can be contained in a stadium and have the requisite financial funding to provide the top level security arrangements needed, the event goes ahead. If the very top level of security can not be guaranteed, then the event does not take place.

Trying to compare the security arrangements in the 6th richest country in the world and one of a third world country with widespread poverty and poor government funding is pretty much a no-brainer. Its not culturally insenstive to suggest that countries with large military spends, and who are used to hosting major high profile events on an international stage are more adequately equipt to guarantee a certain level of safety.

[Dr Cricket]

The risk is everywhere. Why not call off the European Championships in France and events in Belgium and UK, where security keeps telling us an attack is permanently imminent. The 2005 Ashes might well have been called off. It seems like risks in western counties are tolerated. And people say the 'terrorists shouldn't be allowed to win'. But risks elsewhere are unacceptable. Surely the U19s shouldn't have been risked in BD if the England side can't be?

The Belgian Football team cancelled their match with Spain due to security concerns and threats after the Paris attacks. Their home game with Portugal was also cancelled and moved at the last minute to be played in Portugal. Several events like Tomorrow-world and Belgium's highest profile film festival have also been cancelled in 2016 for reasons linked to security directly, or to the cost of providing adequate security making the projects unworkable.

As for France, the list of events that have been cancelled this summer on security grounds forms an incredibly long list. They range from very small local festivals to large ones, such as those in the major cities. So to say that cancellations of this nature only occur in Asian countries is not true.

I think a clear distinction in France has been made. For events that can be contained in a stadium and have the requisite financial funding to provide the top level security arrangements needed, the event goes ahead. If the very top level of security can not be guaranteed, then the event does not take place.

Trying to compare the security arrangements in the 6th richest country in the world and one of a third world country with widespread poverty and poor government funding is pretty much a no-brainer. Its not culturally insenstive to suggest that countries with large military spends, and who are used to hosting major high profile events on an international stage are more adequately equipt to guarantee a certain level of safety.

Anyway can anyone actually trust the bangladesh security forces to handle the situation if they themselves don't know where the ISIS or terrorist cell operate in the country.
this was a bit like how couple years ago the Pakistani government and forces didn't even know Bin laden was living next door to their army headquarters and that USA sent an specialist team to kill him overnight.
they didn't even tell the Pakistani government about the planned attack since they didn't trust them.

it was a big call from ECB to tour Bangladesh, I do hope ECB decided to tour Bangladesh for the right reason and not because of the money/political cost.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Logistically, much easier to contain the England tour, and a small group of travelling supporters (if that's a factor) compared with 24 teams and hundreds of thousands of fans. As in France. And if publicity is a factor, the Euros would be a bigger news story than a cricket tour.

[Dr Cricket]

Logistically, much easier to contain the England tour, and a small group of travelling supporters (if that's a factor) compared with 24 teams and hundreds of thousands of fans. As in France. And if publicity is a factor, the Euros would be a bigger news story than a cricket tour.

Think the france euro had bad publicity already for the shoddy security arrangement remember reading at the time that the security was so bad that isis could have actually done an attack, France got away with it big time since I believe ISIS didn't have the facilities to attack the stadium but if they really wanted to they could have caused mayhem outside the stadium since it really wasn't that difficult for them.

Anyway ISIS had other plans considering they did an attack on Bastille day, 4 days after the final.

so if they really wanted to attack the euros they could have done but it wouldn't have been the major attack ISIS were hoping for since the stadium were well protected but the fan parks and the outside areas were not.

[hopeforthebest]

I thought it was amusing when the ECB stated Andrew Strauss and other ECB people will be there, then added they will visit for a short time. No doubt as short as possible and with Presidential level security. Of course the ECB should cancel the tour or move it to Dubai as was once mooted. It's not long ago that terrorists targeted foreigners in that country and that alone should be sufficient reason not to blackmail players in the way they are. It's all very well for people to sit in comfort away from danger and say everything will be OK. I feel sorry for Hales and other players who are only on the fringe of test selection whilst players such as Cook, Broad, Stokes, Anderson and Root could say no without damage to their career prospects.